A Stupa of Awakening to Honor the Memory and Activity of Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche

It has been six months since Khenpo Rinpoche’s passing into nirvana, and we are ready now, even in the midst of a time of global pandemic and difficulty, to create a stupa (or chöten, in Tibetan) to hold his relics and serve as a beacon and focal point for all humanity.

For us at Karma Triyana Dharmachakra Monastery, our late abbot Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche was a bright light that dispelled the darkness of our ignorance and spread wisdom and compassion everywhere it shone.

This past fall, hundreds of people crowded onto the east-facing hillside at Khenpo Rinpoche’s beloved Karme Ling Retreat Center to witness his cremation. This coming summer, we hope to raise a granite stupa – created to last hundreds of years – in that exact place to commemorate his life and continue his dharma activity.

Those familiar with Khenpo Rinpoche’s story will know of his endless devotion to the Buddhas and his endless compassion for sentient beings, and that he expressed his devotion and kindness by creating strikingly beautiful offerings and shrines. 

Khenpo Rinpoche’s stupa, to be situated at the site of his cremation in front of the Karme Ling Columbarium and Five-Buddha Shrine, will be in keeping with his shrine-building tradition.  

Made of fine granite, filled with the relics of great masters of the past and Khenpo Rinpoche’s own precious bone relics, and surrounded by gardens, the stupa will overlook the stream and valley east of the retreat center – places where Khenpo Rinpoche spent hours in meditation.

We know that this place of retreat, where Khenpo Rinpoche lived and taught and dissolved into the dharmakaya, will be visited by many of his students and devotees in the future.

And in the past, Khenpo Rinpoche declared his ashes would be placed in the Columbarium and invited his students to reserve places so their ashes would rest in the Five Buddha Shrine along with his.

Now we are inviting donors to become part of Khenpo Rinpoche’s dharma activity and help us create a stupa that will bring peace and blessing to the world, avert the dangers of disease and warfare, and serve as a lasting remembrance of Rinpoche’s love. 

The Jangchub Chöten (Awakening Stupa) Project

• At the center is a 15-foot tall granite stupa on a raised concrete foundation
• The Stupa will be an Enlightenment (Jangchub) Stupa, of the Eight Types of Stupa 
• Landscaping and gardens will surround the stupa
• A brick circumambulation path will surround the stupa
• A second path will surround the entire stupa and Columbarium complex

Stages of the Project

• Rinpoche’s Purkhang (cremation stupa) will be disassembled
• Land will be cleared, and paths will be laid out
• Foundation will be created
•  Stupa (being made now in China) will be placed
• Gardens and lawn will be created

Of these stages, the first has already been completed, and the second and third have begun. 

What Is Needed

• $80,000 is needed to complete the Stages of the Project

We understand that with the outbreak of disease around the world, many people have financial concerns. Donations of any size will help this project and increase virtue and dharma in our world. 

Donations may be made online via Paypal:

Or by check to: Karme Ling Retreat Center, 315 Retreat Rd., Delhi, NY 13753. For international transfers donations, email Lama Karma Lodro at karmeling@kagyu.org.

What Are the Benefits?

With all the difficulties in the world, especially the new diseases affecting humanity, we need the presence of holy objects more than ever. 

According to the teachings of the Buddha, there are endless benefits to the building of stupas.

In the Guhyasamaja tantra (one of the higher tantras) it says: “A stupa is a palace where all the buddhas are abiding. Those beings who don’t have the karma to actually see the buddhas need the holy objects of body, speech and mind – statues, scriptures, stupas – as a field for accumulating merit and virtue.”  

And there are 18 more benefits, including longevity, health and attainment of the goal of the dharma path – awakening. These benefits are explained here [include link].

With this Jangchub Chöten project, Khenpo Rinpoche is giving us an opportunity to do something good and lasting, something to repay his kindness, and something to help pacify all sickness in the world.

Lift up your hearts and be part of Khenpo Rinpoche’s dharma activity.

May all beings benefit!

Resources: Nyima’s Blog–All About Chötens